Internet Protocol (IP) telephony solutions are being deploying in place of standard publicly switched telephone network (PSTN) systems. An IP telephony system can be simpler to manage and save companies money, for example, by avoiding per-call toll charges.
One form of IP telephony is a telephone unit which can plug into a local area network (LAN), such as an Ethernet, which is generally used to link computers together. Some versions of such an IP telephone may run a robust operating system which supports programmability and custom applets, and perform other functions not possible with regular telephones. For this reason, some IP telephones may be considered “smart phones.”
Another form of IP telephony is an IP software telephone (“softphone”) application, which can run on multimedia enabled personal computers (PCs). An IP “softphone” application allows callers to make phone calls on their PCs using headphones and microphones plugged into their PCs.
Various systems and services are now being offered to allow two or more users to participate in an on-line, collaborative meeting, in which the users may share and collectively review or edit applications, files, documents, images, etc., in real time. Video may be available or supported for these meetings. One such service is provided by WebEx Communications, Inc. of San Jose, Calif. Collaborative computing, and various systems and methods for same, is described in more detail, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/751,548, entitled “Scalable Distributed System For Collaborative Computing,” filed on Dec. 29, 2000, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference. Typically, the on-line meeting are initiated through one or more web sites (e.g., co-branded with a company) and users are invited to join via email. After joining such an on-line meeting using a web browser of their personal computers (PCs), the users typically dial into a conference call for reliable audio.
In some situations, however, the sequence of events may be reversed. In particular, as two or more people are involved in a telephone call, it may be desirable for them to initiate a collaborative, on-line meeting session to share documents, images, applications, or other files for common viewing, editing, review, or other forms of collaboration.
Systems and techniques have previously been developed which allow collaboration computing applications to be launched from an IP softphone, which is running on the same PC. But, users are not able to launch collaboration sessions from a physically separate IP telephone. This is a problem since people are accustomed to making and receiving voice calls on their physical phones, not on their computers. Furthermore, in the modern world, integration of systems for a seamless user experience is important. Users have come to expect and even demand connectivity and compatibility of their various communications systems and electronic devices.